Advocating third option
N.S. group is closely following P.E.I. school closure debate
The debate that’s raging on Prince Edward Island over the future of five schools recommended for closure has caught the attention of the Nova Scotia
Small Schools Initiative.
“Schools are assets, not liabilities,” says
Paul Bennett, a co-founder of the Nova Scotia initiative. Until governments realize that, he said, they will continue to repeat mistakes from the past.
Bennett and fellow cofounder, Leif Helmer, have a trip to P.E.I planned for next week to join the Island debate. They are scheduled to appear before the P.E.I. Legislative Standing Committee on Education and Economic Development on Feb. 15, and while here, they are arranging meetings with groups campaigning against the school closure ecommendations. Helmer said they want to encourage Island communities to “innovate a solution that is not status quo but is also not closure, something in between.” He refers to the “in between” as “the third option,” a community hub concept which would see community groups use parts of rural schools. Greenfield Elementary in Nova Scotia’s Queens County is an example of that. The school board, he said, has rooms for teaching space.
There is a library on one end and a fitness centre on the other, each with their own entrance and security.
“It’s co-locating those facilities in a rural spot, and it works for that school of 31 kids,” Helmer said.
Efforts to save rural schools in Nova Scotia have had mixed results and Helmer is in the midst of trying to save the Petite Riviere school in his Lunenburg County community. “We are still working to propose that third option and solve it with the board,” he said. They are nearing the end of Year 4 of a five-year window since the school was recommended for closure. He sympathizes with supporters of five P.E.I. schools being required to respond within 60 days of the closure recommendations they heard on Jan. 10. “Abandoned school buildings lead to abandoned communities and ghost villages,” says Bennett in advancing his argument for keeping small schools open.
He’s intrigued that the decision on closure is being left with a three-person appointed board.
He finds it ironic that a famous painting, “A Meeting of the School Trustees,” (Robert Harris, 1885) is set on Prince Edward Island.
“The province where school trustees came into being should not be the province where democratic local control is extinguished,” he argues.
“It has to be stopped and this is as good a time as any,” said Bennett in adding his voice to a call for a moratorium on school closures.